Joker (2019)

[TM2YC]

Sorry for the following long ramble...

Joker (2019)
My viewing of 'Joker' at the cinema commenced with some kind of 5D, performance art, interactive experience. Just as the film rolled a guy walked into the theater and began dancing down the aisle, gesticulating to people in the front row and mumbling to himself. Then he sat down a few rows behind me. As Joaquin Phoenix's character was being beaten up by a gang (in the opening scene), I heard shrieking screams from what I thought were the rear speakers but realized it was the same guy. During the next scene he began laughing loudly at points were there were no jokes. Then a big guy at the rear of the theater lost it and began shouting at the first guy to leave and went up to him and started threatening him with violence. Luckily the staff turned up and after much more shouting convinced the first guy to leave. He walked out slowly making the gun gesture with his hand, first at his own head, then at random members of the audience. We all sat back in our seats to watch a fictional movie about a crazy guy that had acquired an extra uncomfortable layer of reality...

First of all it has to be said that Joaquin Phoenix's performance is incredible and surely a shoe-in for an Oscar nomination at the very least. The Cinematography is actually pretty nice and not anything like as horrid as it looks in the trailers but unfortunately everything else is flawed. The story and pacing is unfocused and random. As I said above, the film begins with Joker being beaten up, something that in another movie could be the cause of him flipping out. It's followed by a stream of personal crisis that could all have been portrayed as his final tipping point, if an editor choose to shuffle them up. They are all powerful moments due to Phoenix's performance but there is no arc to it. As a result the movie didn't know where or when to end either. Clearly referencing better 70s/80s films like 'The King of Comedy', 'Taxi Driver' and 'Network' only highlighted the deficiencies. The only moment of lightness and joy is a single shot from another better film, Charlie Chaplin's 'Modern Times' and I didn't know what that reference was trying to say anyway?

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The love interest subplot is so badly handled. Director Todd Phillips hasn't exactly got a reputation for making brilliant films so at first I wasn't sure if we the audience were supposed to find it convincing but it was terribly written/directed/acted, or we were supposed to see it was phony, shallow and unbelievable. Then you realize, oh my god, we were supposed to be totally convinced by it and Phillips is so pleased with himself that he shows us a montage of his cleverness. That flashback montage was pandering to the dummies in the audience and that mentality is repeated when he has to slowly spell out that the kid living at Wayne manor is... Bruce Wayne! Other moments don't land because they are underdeveloped like "I'm letting you live character who I've spoken to once because you were the only person who was nice to me". The story more or less concludes with Joker on the run from the cops but they still somehow allow him to appear live on a prime-time TV chat-show because the Gotham cops are that incompetent or forgetful?

'Joker' is not to be missed because of the towering central performance but overall I found the movie to be an unnecessarily nasty and mean spirited affair. I just can't see the point of doing a comic superhero movie this dark, with mental illness, graphic/realistic killings and child abuse as subjects. A world where everybody is vile, Alfred Pennyworth is vile, Thomas Wayne is vile and every citizen of Gotham, whether they are part of a hate fueled mob cheering public shootings, or sitting on a bus being vile in person. It's not fun anymore.

By the way... This might only be a UK thing but the closeup shots of character's faces spattered with gunshot blood were distracting. The drops of blood were CGI additions that didn't convince. It looked like genuine blood squibs were involved but they'd then painted them out from the faces and then carefully painted back in tiny digital blood drops one-by-one until they'd maxed out what was permissible within a UK 15-Certifcate (which I believe is milder than a US R-rating). 'Joker' is definitely a movie for adults and should have been a full-strength 18-Certificate IMO but the studio have cynically squeezed it under the 15-Cert so older children would be able to see it too.

There is plenty of fanedit potential here.

 

[Masirimso17]

@"TM2YC" I haven’t seen it yet (seeing it tonight) but you’re saying it isn’t fun anymore. Why does it always have to be for fun? Just because it’s a comic book movie? Why can’t we have a serious Joker movie handling serious matters? It’s a good thing to bring these social issues to the spotlight with a popular character. Similar to what The Dark Knight, Iron Man & Black Panther did.

EDIT: You even gave an example to a similar thing happening in your theater. Isn’t it good to bring awareness?

This isn’t to say all dark superhero movies are good. The problem with Batman v Superman wasn’t that it was dark, it was that it didn’t get what Batman and Superman represents, and it was also a terribly written movie.

 

[TM2YC]

you’re saying it isn’t fun anymore. Why does it always have to be for fun? Just because it’s a comic book movie?

It doesn't always have to be fun, as in funny, or as in enjoyable but I can't understand making something this un-fun, with this particular property.

You could do a similarly dark Iron Man take where Tony Stark isn't a cheeky playboy womanizer but a monstrous sexual predator. Where he is an actual amoral, blood-drenched arms dealer. Where he's not just comically self-obsessed but a dangerous sociopath. Where he doesn't wear a cool robot suit but just fetishistically mutilates his skin with metal like in the similarly titled 1989 Japanese film 'Tetsuo: The Iron Man'. It wouldn't be fun anymore. Maybe Marvel will get to that point some day, when they've had as many failures as DC/WB and no longer know what to do with their characters.

I think I'd have maybe preferred the exact same super dark performance that Phoenix gave but in a movie where Joker

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ultimately blew up a bank, or kidnapped Bruce Wayne, or enacted some grand anarchistic scheme instead of just stabbing a guy to death and shooting another guy in the face.

It's still a good film and one I recommend seeing on the whole.

EDIT: You even gave an example to a similar thing happening in your theater. Isn’t it good to bring awareness?

I don't think a supervillain movie (certainly not this one) is going to be the forum for change on that funding issue.

 

[Jrzag42]

That Ironman idea would be amazing, I want to see it.

 

[TM2YC]

That Ironman idea would be amazing, I want to see it.

I knew somebody would say that .

 

[Nic]

@"TM2YC" I haven’t seen it yet (seeing it tonight) but you’re saying it isn’t fun anymore. Why does it always have to be for fun? Just because it’s a comic book movie? Why can’t we have a serious Joker movie handling serious matters? It’s a good thing to bring these social issues to the spotlight with a popular character.

Without getting into spoilers (because it's late at night while I type this), the problem is that you have to handle those serious matters seriously. And the way the movie is constructed, it doesn't really have a clear grasp of who's to blame for the people who suffer from these serious matters.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

That Ironman idea would be amazing, I want to see it.

I knew somebody would say that .

Come on now, you knew exactly who would say that.

 

[Masirimso17]

And the way the movie is constructed, it doesn't really have a clear grasp of who's to blame for the people who suffer from these serious matters.

It really does though. Saw the movie and I loved it.

@"TM2YC" I don’t think it matters that they’re making a really serious movie out of a comic book character. It was very similar to Logan tonally, even darker, and I loved it because it was executed brilliantly. And your Iron Man idea, if it was as well executed as Joker was, I would love the shit out of that.

 

[TM2YC]

I don’t think it matters that they’re making a really serious movie out of a comic book character.

I agree.

It was very similar to Logan tonally

I mostly disagree. Logan was far superior overall but was a similar and comparable serious treatment of the main character. However, Logan was still fun in the way you'd expect a movie about super mutants to be: badguys with robot arms, car chases, big dramatic stakes, a mission for the character, an epic showdown etc. It was very violent but it was violent because Wolverine was being Wolverine with nothing held back. If he just shot random people in the face instead of using his claws against the badguys, to save the goodguys it would have been pointlessly violent. It was still a comic book X-Men film, just done with seriousness. Joker was more like a film about disturbing mental illness that just happened to be called Joker. Jack Nicholson's Joker burning somebody alive with a hand buzzer is very dark but very Joker, or him poisoning people with smile inducing beauty products, or a flower that shoots acid, Heath Ledger's Joker "making a pencil disappear" was very dark but very Joker, the new Joker

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shooting somebody in the face was just shooting somebody in the face.

 

[Masirimso17]

@"TM2YC" I understand what you mean, some people I talked to also said they wanted Joker to have more or be more like Joker. Interesting perspective, but personally it didn’t bother me at all.

 

[Canon Editor]

The only moment of lightness and joy is a single shot from another better film, Charlie Chaplin's 'Modern Times' and I didn't know what that reference was trying to say anyway?

Initially, I too found it confusing, but then I read an article that suggested that it had to do with the fact both plots have to do with a man who’s victim of society’s oppression.

 

[TM2YC]

The only moment of lightness and joy is a single shot from another better film, Charlie Chaplin's 'Modern Times' and I didn't know what that reference was trying to say anyway?

Initially, I too found it confusing, but then I read an article that suggested that it had to do with the fact both plots have to do with a man who’s victim of society’s oppression.

Probably but was a rollerskating scene really the best clip to highlight that?

 

[TM2YC]

This parody is so dead on:

 

[Nic]

Ahh, God bless you, Jenny Nicholson. Bringing your A Game to a movie that doesn't deserve it.

 

[Plissken1138]

I'll refrain from the rant and instead give you this tweet from the president of dark humor

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[GotMoreTimeLaddeh]

If anyone wants to edit the movie and for some reason wants to take out Glitter's song, i think this would be a fitting choice:

 

[mnkykungfu]

Looks like a Nolanverse Joker origin story.

That's bad.

Why would that be bad?

 

[Duragizer]

Looks like a Nolanverse Joker origin story.

That's bad.

Why would that be bad?

Put succinctly, I'm not a fan of Nolan in general or his "realistic" take on Batman in particular.

 

[Masirimso17]

@"Duragizer" I think it's darker than the Nolanverse, possibly even Snyderverse, except it fits the character much better, and there is kind of a sense of humor at least, twisted as it may be. I dunno. Hard to explain

 

[Duragizer]

Yeah, not interested. I don't care for dark comic book movies. Don't care much for the Joker, too, to be honest. He's one overexposed character who could stand to lie fallow for thirty years.